Alcatraz Annotations

 

So, I don't know if I ever blogged here about the insanity that was the Alcatraz copyedit.  I intended to do the copyedit while I was in D.C. for my signing there.  However, I forgot the pages and left them in Utah.

I emailed Scholastic, and they said they really, really wanted me to get the copyedit in by the end of the week--which was a problem, since I was going to be in D.C. until the end of the week. 

We tried getting them overnighted to me, but it was too late to get them in on time.  We thought we were in trouble--we even considered faxing all 300 pages--until I thought of simply letting Pemberly do most of the copy edit.

She stepped up quite admirably and went though the edit, approving or stetting changes by the copyeditor.  When she came to larger changes, she noted them, then called me to talk them over and ask what I wanted to do.  It was a process that took hours for her, and must have been very frustrating because she had to call and talk to me while I was roaming all over D.C. visiting bookstores.  I had to keep hanging up on her to talk to booksellers as we entered new stores.

Anyway, my wife is awesome.  The problem with this was, however, that I couldn't write the annotations during the copyedit, as I normally do.  So, I'm going to try and get them out while I do the proofread--which I have to send back next week, so we'll see if I can get it all done in time. 

Anyway, I'm not sure if you care about all that or not.  To make it up to you, I'll post the 'about the author' page of Alcatraz Verses the Evil Librarians (which is indeed the final title, as people have asked me.)  This might explain to you why I'm using a potted plant (which isn't potted) as my author photo.

“Brandon Sanderson” is the pen name of Alcatraz Smedry. His Hushlander editor forced him to use a pen name, since his memoirs were going to be published as fiction.

Alcatraz actually knows a person named Brandon Sanderson. That man, however, is a fantasy writer--and is therefore prone to useless bouts of delusion in literary form. Alcatraz has it on good authority that Brandon Sanderson is actually illiterate, and dictates his thick, overly-long fantasy tomes to his potted plant, Count Duku.

It is widely assumed that Brandon went mad several years ago, but few people can tell because his writing is so strange anyway. He spends his time going to science fiction movies, eating popcorn and goat cheese (separately), and trying to warn people about the dangers of the Great Kitten Conspiracy.

He’s had his library card revoked on seventeen different occasions.

Also, by request, here's the Pemberly eating cake picture from my birthday party: